This invention relates to gas turbine engines and, more particularly, to variable cycle engines that balance supersonic and subsonic performance.
A conventional multi-spool gas turbine engine has three basic parts in an axial, serial flow relationship: a core compressor to pressurize air entering into an inlet portion of the engine, a core combustor to add fuel and ignite the pressurized air into a propulsive gas flow, and a core turbine that is rotated by the propulsive gas flow, which in turn rotates the core compressor through a core shaft extending between the core turbine and the core compressor. The core compressor, the core turbine, the core combustor and the shaft are collectively referred to as the core engine.
Gas turbine engines intended for use in aircraft typically collect inlet air through an inlet cowling positioned at an upstream or front end of the engine. Typically, the propulsive gas flow is exhausted at a downstream or rear end of the engine through an exhaust nozzle, after flowing axially through the engine. The exhaust gas exits the nozzle at a higher velocity than the velocity of the inlet air thereby producing thrust with the net acceleration of the flow. A gas turbine engine that utilizes the core engine to accelerate all of the entering flow to produce thrust is typically referred to as a turbojet engine. The force, or thrust, generated by a turbojet is increased by either increasing the exhaust gas velocity or increasing the mass of air flowing through the engine. Gas turbine propulsive efficiency is directly related to the velocity of the exhaust leaving the engine in comparison with vehicle flight speed. Thus, turbojet engines with typically high exhaust velocities are well suited to producing high efficiency at supersonic speeds, and are somewhat inefficient at low speeds.
The thermodynamic efficiency of a turbojet engine can be altered by adding one or more lower pressure compressors upstream of the higher pressure core compressor; one or more lower pressure turbines downstream of the higher pressure core turbine; and low pressure shafts connecting the low pressure turbines and compressors. Such multi-spool engines increase the thermodynamic efficiency of turbojet engines, as the high pressure and lower pressure spools operate at their own optimum speeds and combine to deliver higher overall pressure ratio. Typically, multi-spool engines have either two spools (a low pressure spool and a high pressure spool) or three spools (a low pressure spool, an intermediate pressure spool, and a high pressure spool), but other configuration are possible. This patent application will use a dual-spool gas turbine engine as one example of a multi-spool gas turbine engine. A person of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the concepts that are discussed in the concept of a dual-spool gas turbine engine are equally applicable to a three-spool gas turbine engine or other multi-spool gas turbine engines.
A turbofan engine, another type of dual-spool gas turbine engine, couples a large diameter fan to the upstream end of the low pressure compressor. Some of the inlet air entering the engine bypasses the core engine and is simply accelerated by the fan to produce a portion of the engine's thrust, while the rest of the air is directed to the core engine to sustain the combustion process and produce an added component of thrust. The ratio of the amount of air going around the core engine to the amount of air passing through the core engine is known as the bypass ratio (BPR). The fan can be used to produce a substantial portion of the total thrust generated by the engine because thrust production is partially dependent on fan airflow and the fan pressure ratio (FPR), the ratio of fan discharge pressure to fan inlet pressure, rather than aircraft speed. The net exhaust velocity is affected by the mixed velocity of the relatively slow fan stream and the core stream and is therefore affected by bypass ratio. Thus, turbofans typically have large BPRs with low to moderate FPR and are well suited to producing high thrust at subsonic speeds, and are somewhat inefficient at high speeds.
Fundamentally, in comparing the two engine types at equivalent thrust levels, turbojet engines accelerate smaller quantities of air to extremely high exhaust velocities to produce thrust, while turbofan engines accelerate larger quantities of air to much lower velocities. Thus, aircraft gas turbine engines have historically been able to perform well—in terms of propulsive efficiency—at either subsonic speeds or supersonic speeds, but not both. At subsonic speeds, it is desirable to have a high BPR and low FPR. At supersonic speeds, it is desirable to have a low BPR and high FPR. Attempts have been made to incorporate the advantages of turbojet and turbofan engines into a single combined cycle engine to achieve efficiency over a broad range of speeds. As such, there is a need for a variable cycle gas turbine engine that operates efficiently over a wide range of operating conditions.